


come back as fire

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Folklore, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 15:45:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18034520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Maki is a fairie, hating humanity. She exists only to make deals with them; bring them the pain and suffering that she feels daily.And then there's Kaito.





	come back as fire

Maki draws a deep breath as she inspects, for the fifth time, the fairie circle that surrounds her. Once, as a child, she stumbled across a book of folklore in the forest, dropped by someone with a fate unknown, and she still scoffs at the depiction of fairies - all kind, sweet, helpful, beautiful. The pages have long since been burned for firewood. The circle, created of poisonous mushrooms, shields her from the human eye; she can only be seen by mortals if they step over the ring, and by then, they’re too doomed to do anything with the knowledge of her existence.

Even her appearance defies stereotypes. There’s nothing about herself that she would call beautiful. Her wings aren’t dainty, pure, or milk-translucent; they’re made of fire and fire alone, and they burn her back every second that she exists. She’s not pastel - she’s all red and black and deep purple, like a body of bruises, and she’s been known to burn the eyes out of people who have looked at her for too long.

It’s not demons that people make deals with, it’s _her._ A forest-crossroads.

And then there’s a man. A sickening, human man, who cannonballs through the wilderness on heavy feet, his footfall aching, creating fault-lines across hallowed ground. Typical, for sacred ground to mean nothing to mortals; she hopes that he crosses into her circle so that she can do away with him and save them both pain.

And he does. One foot, then the other, breaking grass and disturbing the circle, but even though she knows that he can see her now, he doesn’t react.

He’s crying.

She coughs.

Commands attention.

“Oh.”

That’s all he says.

“What makes you dare cross into my territory?” Maki says, trying to scald him with her gaze alone, wishing she were the fantasy of Medusa. 

“There was hardly a sign at the front saying _PRIVATE PROPERTY,”_ he retorts.

“Well, it’s mine. And you’re in my circle now, which means you can’t leave.”

“Oh yeah? Watch me,” he says, trying to backpedal across the line of poison, but her invisible forcefield stops him and he falls, hitting his back hard against the floor.

“Sorry, you were saying…” she smirks at him.

“Right, whatever. Sure. So what are you gonna do, kill me? Fine. Do it.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Then what?”

“People cross my circle if they want to make a deal.”

“Well, there’s nothing I want.”

“You should probably want to stop crying, you look pathetic.”

“Well, fuck you, it’s none of your business.”

“The moment you crossed my circle, you _made_ it my business.”

“It’s not every day you get rejected from space school.”

“Space school? You mean…JAXA?”

“Yeah. Didn’t think someone lik- I mean, didn’t think you’d know what that was.”

“What, just ‘cause I’m a fairie you think I don’t know about modern life?”

“Well, y’know, it’s not like you guys are just fucking about town every day, is it? You live in the woods and shit. I’d say that’s pretty removed from society.”

“I _can_ leave. I just don’t. I hate humans.”

“Yeah,” he says, “me too.”

“So what deal is it you want? You want to get into ‘space school’?”

“No. Not anymore. Not if it’s not authentic.”

“Look, buddy,” she says, rolling her eyes, “you can’t leave unless you make a deal.”

“Then I guess I’m stayin’. ‘Cause it’s never just a deal, is it? I mean, you have to take my soul in a year or something like that, right?”

“Nope.”

“Then what?”

“You’re thinking of demons. Which, by the way, don’t exist. No…making deals with fairies gets you what you ask for. _Exactly_ what you ask for.”

“So you’ll find a way to fuck it up, whatever it is?”

“Essentially.”

“Right. Shit.”

“But you can’t leave unless you make a deal.”

“Yeah, I got that part. I guess you should know who I am before I commit my life to you, then.”

“I don’t ca-”

“I’m Kaito.”

“Okay. Still not going to go easy on you, though.”

“I figured. Give me a moment to decide what I want, then.”

Maki conjures two mugs out of thin air and pours some tea from her fingertips. She hands one cup to Kaito.

“What is this? Like, poison?”

“No, it’s just tea. I’m not about shady, underhanded tricks like that.”

“Oh. Good, ‘cause I’m parched.”

Kaito drinks the tea and she watches him, curious. If she didn’t know better, she’d wonder why meeting the first human she’s seen in over three centuries isn’t filling her with her usual rage. He finishes the cup and, within the second, she’s refilling it. It flashes through her mind that she might even like to know what smiling feels like.

“I think I’ve decided,” Kaito says.

“Oh?”

“I want nothing.”

“You can’t do that.”

“No, I mean it. I want nothing. _So,_ I want you to decide. But the deal I want is…whatever you do to me, I want you to do to yourself, too.”

“What?”

“You heard me? It’s not against the rules, is it?”

“There aren’t any rules.”

“Perfect. Then I want you to make whatever deal you want, but you’re making it for the both of us.”

She frowns, lines burrowing beneath the skin of her brow. Kaito seems like such a damn _smartass,_ but she’s got the upper hand, because _she’s_ the one making the decision.

“Right,” she says, “okay. You sure that’s your final deal?”

“Yep.”

“Shake on it.”

She holds out her hand and he takes it, and then light blinds the both of them as it emits from their binding contract.

Kaito drops to the floor in obvious agony. His face screws up in pain as he clutches at his chest, trying to push his back against the floor so hard that she thinks he might tear himself in half. She doesn’t know this pain.

Because she was born with wings.

At some point, he passes out, and she kneels by his body. He’s drenched in sweat, clammy, and shaking despite not being conscious. She lays her hand across his forehead and props him up, allowing air to flow against his back so that his wings can fully come through. He wished for whatever happened to her to happen to him - and all she wants is for things to stay as they are, so she made him like her. She made him a fairie.

As he stirs in uncomfortable sleep, she holds him close.

* * *

 

**_TEN CENTURIES LATER_ **

“Darling,” he says, rolling over on the bed of leaves, his wings stretching out over the vast expanse of land that they call their own, “the sun is rising.”

“Shall we watch it?”

“As always. Let’s catch the last few stars. I’ll tie a lasso and bring them down just for you, my love.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday Criis!
> 
> Title from the AMAZING song 'Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle' by Nirvana. Please comment if you liked this :^)


End file.
